World War

II

United States History

“Trembling in Her Shoes”

• Japanese newspapers reported that we were reduced to a third-rate power…

• but if Americans were trembling, it was with rage, not fear!

• 5 million Americans volunteered for service.

• The Selection Service System expanded the draft and provided another 10 million soldiers.

Expanding the

Military• Army Chief of Staff General

George Marshall pushed for the formation of a Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps.

• Some Americans questioned the ability of females in the war effort; they were wrong.

• For example, General Dwight D. Eisenhower said, “..like most old soldiers, I was violently against it…Every phase of the record they compiled during the war convinced me of the error of my first reaction.”

All In• African Americans, Mexican Americans,

Native Americans, and Asian Americans all played key roles in the war effort.

• Native American language helped preserve military code from being broken.

• Japanese Americans were used as spies and interpreters.

• Some minorities were conflicted, seeing that racism and discrimination were still evident in America. For example, on receiving his draft notice, an African American responded unhappily, “Just carve on my tombstone, ‘Here lies a black man killed fighting a yellow man for the protection of the white man.”

Production Miracle

• Automobile and steel factories shutdown and retooled to produce tanks, planes, boats, and jeeps.

Labor Contributio

n• Defense contractors feared

the nation didn’t have enough workers to meet production. They were wrong.

• Women proved they could operate welding torches or riveting guns as well as men.

• Women earned only about 60% as much as men doing the same job

• Minorities also played pivotal roles amid discrimination.

Mobilization of Scientists

• Roosevelt created the Office of Scientific Research and Development. The OSRD spurred improvements to radar and sonar.

• They also helped fight insects with pesticides (DDT) and medicine like penicillin.

• The most significant achievement of the OSRD was the “Manhattan Project.” The research for a secret weapon (atomic bomb) was performed at Columbia University in Manhattan after Albert Einstein wrote FDR a warning that the Germans had succeeded in splitting uranium atoms

The Federal Government Takes

Control• As war production increased, there were fewer consumer products

available for purchase. FDR responded to this threat by creating the Office of Price Administration (OPA).

• The OPA set up a system of rationing (establishing fixed allotments of goods deemed essential for the military).

• Income tax was increased and extended to many.• The War Production Board (WPB) helped to ensure the armed forces

received the resources they needed.

“In the Same Boat”

• FDR and Churchill agreed at the White House that Germany and Italy posed a greater threat than Japan.

• Goal: gain an upper hand on Hitler in Europe, then focus on war in the Pacific.

• FDR to Churchill: “It is fun, to be in the same decade as you.”

Battle of the

Atlantic• Hitler ordered submarine

raids against ships along America’s east coast to prevent food and war materials from reaching Europe.

• Unprotected American ships were initially sunk at an alarming rate. Eventually the tide turned for the Allies by organizing their cargo ships into convoys while using sonar and radar to detect the German Wolf Pack subs.

Battle of Stalingrad• German tanks and troops were

stuck in their tracks outside of Moscow and Leningrad.

• Hitler turned his attention to Stalingrad (named after Stalin) because it was a major industrial center on the Volga River.

• The Germans had captured 90% of the city using brutal warfare. Stalin ordered tanks to surround the city in the winter of 1943. The starving German soldiers were forced to surrender and the Soviets claimed victory.

North Africa • FDR and Churchill didn’t think

the Allies had enough troops to attempt an invasion on European soil. Instead they launched Operation Torch, an invasion of Axis-controlled North Africa, commanded by Dwight D. Eisenhower.

• The Afrika Korps led by General Erwin Rommel (Desert Fox) surrendered in May 1943.

• Rommel later was accused of an assassination attempt against Hitler and forced to take poison.

Italian Campaign

• The Allies captured Sicily and the Italian government forced Benito Mussolini, the leader, to resign.

• King Victor Emmanuel had him arrested and proclaimed, “You are the most hated man in Italy.”

• Germany and the Allies then squared off at the Battle of Anzio 40 miles south of Rome. The war raged on for months.

D-Day: June 6, 1944

• American General “Ike” Eisenhower set up Operation Overload, a dramatic plan to invade northern France (Normandy) and free Western Europe from the Nazis.

• The invasion was originally set for June 5th, but bad weather delayed the largest land-sea-air operation in army history by 1 day.

• The fighting was brutal, particularly at Omaha Beach.

Allies Gain Ground

• Despite heavy casualties, the Allies held the 80 mile strip of beachheads in France. This allowed them to land over a million troops in a month.

• General Omar Bradley unleashed a massive air-land bombardment.

• General George Patton reached the Seine River south of Paris. Patton to Ike: “Dear Ike: Today I spat in the Seine.”

FDR Four a Fourth!!

• Since the Allies had freed France, Belgium and Luxembourg, the American people’s desire not to “change horses in mid-stream” helped FDR win a 4th presidential election with running mate, Senator Harry S. Truman.

Battle of the Bulge

• In October 1944, America captured its first German town.

• Hitler responded with a desperate last-gasp offensive. Goal: to create a bulge in the Allied lines with a tank offensive.

• The Germans succeeded initially, but after a month, they had been pushed back and were forever on the defensive.

Liberation of the Death

Camps• Allied troops pressed

eastward into the German heartland.

• The Soviet army pushed westward across Poland and were the first to come across the Nazi death camps.

• SS guards worked feverishly to bury and burn all evidence of their heinous crimes.

• One Soviet said: “This is not a concentration camp, it is a gigantic murder plant.”

• Shoes ……………... Rings

Unconditional Surrender

• By April 25, 1945, the Soviet army had stormed Berlin.

• Hitler married his longtime girlfriend, Eva Braun, in his underground headquarters in Berlin.

• In the bunker, Hitler shot himself and Eva poisoned herself on April 30th. Their bodies were carried outside and burned.

• A week later, General Eisenhower accepted the unconditional surrender of the Third Reich. This is May 8th, 1945 = V-E Day = Victory in Europe Day.

Roosevelt R.I.P.

• FDR did not live to see V-E Day. On April 12, 1945, while posing for a portrait in Georgia, the president had a stroke and died.

• That night, Vice President Harry S. Truman became the nation’s 33rd president.

Payback• The Japanese attack on

Pearl Harbor in 1941 had missed the Pacific Fleet’s submarines and aircraft carriers.

• In the first six months after Pearl Harbor, the Japanese conquered an empire that dwarfed Hitler’s Third Reich.

• General Douglas MacArthur left the Philippines with his family: “I shall return.”

Doolittle’s Raid

• In the spring of 1942 the Allies began to turn the tide against the Japanese.

• Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle led 16 bombers in the attack.

• Americans awoke to headlines: “Tokyo Bombed! Doolittle Do’od it.”

The Battle of Midway• Midway was a strategic island which lies northwest of Hawaii. • Americans had broken the Japanese code and knew that Midway

was their next target.• Admiral Chester Nimitz, the commander of the American naval

forces in the Pacific, moved to defend the island.• On June 3, 1942, the Americans won a stunning victory. It was the

turning point in the Pacific War; Americans would begin “island hopping.”

Allies = Offense Japanese =

Defense• “Hell on earth” in a figurative

sense: the Americans defeat of the Japanese at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands began a hellish battle that would keep the Japanese on the run.

• The only proven new tactic by the Japanese was the kamikaze (divine wind), or suicide attack in which Japanese pilots crashed their bomb-laden planes into Allied ships.

Iwo Jima and

Okinawa• The marines first took Iwo Jima.• This famous picture is actually

the raising of a second flag after they decided the first flag wasn’t big enough.

• Just one battle stood between the Allies and a final assault on Japan – the island of Okinawa.

• After a bloody victory, the Allied leaders could only imagine what the invasion of Japan’s home islands would be.

Manhattan Project

• Japan still had a huge army and an invasion would render massive casualties.

• President Harry Truman continued to develop the atomic bomb. The Manhattan Project was led by American Scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer at Columbia University in NYC.

• The first test of the new bomb took place in the deserts of New Mexico. The flash could be seen 180 miles away. He thought of the Hindu passage: “I have become death, the shatterer of worlds.”

“Prompt and Utter

Destruction”• Truman warned Japan that

they faced “destruction” if they did not surrender. They refused.

• On August 6, 1945, a bomber named the Enola Gay released the atomic bomb (Little Boy) over Hiroshima.

• Three days later, no surrender had occurred, a second bomb (Fat Man) was dropped on Nagasaki.

Japan Surrenders• Emperor Hirohito was

horrified by the destruction.

• The nuclear destruction of two large Japanese cities was not the only attack on Japan’s mainland; the U.S. had also firebombed Tokyo several months earlier.

• Eisenhower, among others, saw (and still see) the use of atomic weapons on cities as immoral.

Yalta Conference

• In February of 1945, an ailing FDR had met with Churchill and Stalin at the Black Sea resort city of Yalta.

• Stalin favored a harsh approach towards Germany (dividing it into occupation zones).

• To pacify Stalin, FDR convinced Churchill to agree to a temporary division of Germany into four zones.

U.N.• Stalin agreed to join in

the war against Japan. He also agreed to participate in an international conference to take place in April in San Francisco.

• FDR’s dream of a United Nations would become a reality.

• The headquarters would later be in NYC.

Nuremberg• The discovery of Hitler’s death

camps led the Allies to put 24 surviving Nazi leaders on trial for crimes against humanity.

• In the end, 12 of the 24 defendants were sentenced to death.

• Many of the defendants replied with the defense: “I was only following orders.” This flawed logic has hammered home the principle that individuals are responsible for their own actions

Occupation of Japan

• Japan was occupied by U.S. forces under the command of General Douglas MacArthur.

• Prime Minister Hideki Tojo was sentenced to death.

• Emperor Hirohito was allowed to remain as emperor, but one of the peace terms was that he had to address the people and declare that he was not divine, just a man.

• MacArthur helped reshape Japan’s economy by introducing free-market practices.

Economic Gains

• In America, unemployment fell to a low of 1.2 percent in 1944! (currently 7.3%)

• Even with price and wage controls, average weekly paychecks rose 35% during the war.

• Crop production increased by 50%.

• A significant boost of women in the work force rose to 35%.

Social Changes

• There was a major shift in populations. Many moved West and African Americans left the South for northern cities.

• In 1944, Congress passed the ‘GI Bill of Rights’, providing education and training for veterans.

• Many young couples were married during and after the war and sought the American dream of owning their own home.

Civil Rights Discrimination

• Many African Americans left the South, but they still faced discrimination in the North.

• In 1943, a tidal wave of racial violence swept across the country. Detroit had deadly riots between whites and blacks and FDR was forced to send in federal troops. Los Angeles also had much violence between Mexican-Americans and whites.

Internment of the Japanese

• When the war began, 120,000 Japanese Americans lived in the United States, most of them living on the West Coast.

• After Pearl Harbor, some people wrongly worried that they were committing sabotage.

• The War Department called for the mass evacuation of all Japanese Americans from Hawaii.

Internment of the Japanese

• The army rounded up some 110,000 Japanese Americans and shipped them to ten hastily constructed remote “relocation centers.”

Japanese Americans Fight for

Justice• In 1944, the Supreme Court

decided, in Korematsu v. United States, that the government’s policy of evacuating Japanese Americans was justified on the basis of “military necessity.”

• In years after, different presidential administrations attempted to apologize or compensate people for their losses. But as President George Bush said, “We can never fully right the wrong of the past.”

The End or is this The Cold

War?

World War

II

United States History